


Fancy Words To Hide The Meaning

by Breanna_Song



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Aftermath, Earth C (Homestuck), Feel-good, Jasprose is Jose and Davesprite is Davis, Let Hal be Happy 2k18, Loneliness, Self-Hatred, johnroxy is mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-10 01:36:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15280710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Breanna_Song/pseuds/Breanna_Song
Summary: He breathes in, and it's a blessing on how he can do that now. He couldn't breathe in shades. He couldn't do much of anything when he was shades. Now, he can do whatever he wants.Call him AR again. Hal dares you.





	Fancy Words To Hide The Meaning

Hal's tired of everything.

He's tired of his new body that he wished desperately to have. He's tired of watching everyone else fall apart because they claim they're fine, but clearly the game fucked them up. He's tired of being alone. He's tired that no one bothers to care to check if he's died or not, but he guesses that his genetic offspring whom he's never spoken to would've foresaw that. He tired of questioning if he has generic offspring or not because it's as questioning if he's Dirk or not. Most importantly, he's tired of Dirk.

“You need to eat.” He says to the moving lump as the blond fixes around another problem that doesn't need solving. “It's been six hours.” It's been eight hours since he ate something himself, but he figured that's fine because no one cares enough about him to judge his food intake. Dirk turns his head towards him and squints, licking his sandpaper lips, “I'm busy.” The next few times Hal reminds him, the freckled human pretends that he doesn’t hear. It's just like before, and Hal is tired of it. It's not like Dirk can permanently stay dead from starvation anyways.

He goes for a walk. It's chilly, and he wishes he bought himself a sweater, but the weather app on his phone said that it was going to be warm. Plus, he doesn't like the way sweaters feel. The texture is bad, even though he appreciates the sentiment of getting a sloppily made sweater himself. Roxy made it. They haven't spoken since she gave it to him with a smile and a cheer before going back to her boyfriend.

The knowledge that she has a boyfriend, and barely glancing at him, causes Hal to run a few calculations as well as he could with his meaty organic brain. The results were inclusive, but most likely she didn't care about him and flirting with him was only because he reminded her of Dirk. It stings. He reminds himself of Dirk sometimes.

He passes by a large field, and he pauses, staring at the cluster of people. It wasn't the typical gangs of trolls vs humans, but rather the outcasts. Nepeta is scoring a goal, her feet kicking around the black and white ball as if it was apart of her. Davis is defense and he keeps trying to take the ball away from her, but keeps getting himself tackled (though Hal is sure that part belongs to a different sport). Equius stands menacingly in front of a goal, while Jose (their name is both hard to pronounce and forgetful to spell) blocks the one Nepeta keeps trying and successfully scoring into. Cheering is loud.

Jose notices him with their keen eyes and waves to him, gesturing wildly for him to come over. He counts the people involved, and understands that he would be the outcast if he joins in, but his feet betray him by dragging him down the hill to them. He loves the texture grass has, and for a fleeting second, wonders if he could take his shoes off to feel it. 

“Yo, dude,” Davis waves at him with his left hand; the only hand he has. He doesn't have a right arm, since when the game gave him a body, they left that out. Hal is still in awe every time he sees him, even though Davis has to be one he's communicated the most with after the game ended. Davis dyed his hair orange the last time Hal saw him, the bright color of the fruit and the artificial flavoring on the metal cans of soda the director left Dirk, though now it's fading and he can see the blonde roots. Hal swallows, his fingers massaging the bottom of his overly baggy shirt, baggy because he cannot stand the feeling of being trapped. 

He tries to speak, and wounds up repeating Davis’ words back to him, “Yo, dude.” No one makes fun of his echo, and Equius walks over from his post to give him a pat on the shoulder, but fortunately Nepeta pulls him into a hug before the hulking troll could. “Where have you been, furend?” She asks, her voice barely above whispering because she's used to hunting and noises scare away prey.

Davis bounces the ball on one knee, and Hal appreciates him more. He may not be his idol, director brother, but that's fine, because he's fantastic all on his own. “He's been tucked away like a secret prize in a tomb that Indiana Jones is raiding. That motherfucker is getting all up in the mummy's business and taking her baby shower present that she was going to give to her aunt, so you know, not cool, dawg.” The ball falls, slips from the flesh, and bounces once. He debated whether he should reach for it, before remembering his motor skills are useless.

“Not cool, dawg,” he echos (again). “Sorry,” has been an awful lot of his speech vocabulary recently, and he's not afraid to use it once more. Nepeta wacks him in the shoulder, her fanged grin shines in the afternoon sun. “It's okay! I mean, purrhaps you can roll away from the shade and play balls with us more often?” At Davis’ pointed look, she quickly backtracks, “It doesn't kneed to be balls! Anything would do.”

Hal raises his eyebrows, both because he doesn't know how to do just one. “You like my company?” Maybe it's embarrassing how he's proud of prompting a question on his own, but he's tired of feeling like he's not accomplishing nothing. Davis snorts loudly, and cocks his head to the side to show that he's rolling his eyes; in his shades, Hal can see himself and how he looks, and he wonders why the game bothered with his looks when it cut off Davis’ arm. “You're purrrrrfect!” Jose bounces towards him, their voice loud and clear and it hurts his ears.

Nepeta looks happy at the pun. And in Davis’ shades, he can see himself smiling. Maybe he's not so much of an outcast as he thought.

Even if he was, there’s a crew of people just like him.


End file.
